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"That's not going to work for another three weeks," she says, and her breathing is nowhere near level.

"Yeah."

Saturday, Lis gets the four of us out on the balcony and takes the picture. Nobody makes a speech about it. She says, "Okay, hold him up a little," and it's done, and that's the first photograph of all of us that has ever existed.

Somewhere in those days it comes at me from the side. Lis could do this. Mackie could do it hurting and do half of it badly and still do it. There are bottles and doctors and a woman down the hall who would drop everything.

They don't need me to survive it. They ask me to stay anyway. I don't know what to do with being wanted somewhere I don't have a job to earn. Especially somewhere I desperately would rather be over anywhere else. Including the ranch.

Sunday afternoon both babies are down, and Mackie's asleep in the chair with her mouth open and one hand still on the armrest. I find a pen and turn over an envelope on the counter and start running the fall.

I run the calf numbers again. At the weights I projected in June, I can make Dutch's November first payment and still have some room. At the weights Wade sent me yesterday, that room is getting smaller.

I put the envelope in my pocket and make a trip to Sabal to see Hildie.

When I get back to Lis', I find Mackie on the balcony. Both babies are down for the long stretch, and she is at the rail watching the parking lot lights come on one at a time. The heat has gone soft the way it does here after dark. It never actually leaves. It only quits pushing.

I stand next to her. "I need to go back for a bit."

She turns her head and waits, and there's nothing startled in it. She doesn't seem angry, but I can't read her.

"I need to put my boots on the ground. I'm thinking ten days." I look out at the lot. "Weaning starts in three weeks, and once you're into it, a mistake's hard to walk back."

"Then you should go."

She says it without a beat in front of it, the way you'd pass somebody a thing they were already reaching for.

"I don't want to leave you."

"Carson." She bumps my arm with her shoulder. "You've been here since the seventh of July. You've more than put in your time."

"I'm not putting in my time. I want to be here. But I still have a ranch to run, and some of it I have to be there for."

"We'll miss you, but we've got it covered," she says, then picks up the monitor on the table when there is a faint noise. She holds up a finger and walks inside.

She'll miss me. I'm not sure what to do with that, so I put it away and pull the envelope out of my pocket. Ten days saves me about what another round-trip ticket costs in Eli's wages. Close enough to a wash, but it lets me make sure we are set up for what will be a busy fall.

I take out my phone and scroll down to Dutch's name. If he pushes the first payment past November, I can buy myself some room.

Calling means asking him to change the deal. I look at his name a while, then put the phone back in my breast pocket. The door slides open behind me, and I jump.

"It was nothing. Hildie startled and smacked the side of the bassinet. They are both still sleeping."

"Great."

"Can I ask you something?"

"Yeah."

"What are we doing?"

I look at her.

"Not the babies," she says. "You and me."

Her and me. I should have an answer ready, but I don't. I only know I don't want to tell her there isn't one.

"I want this."